Replacing Chernobyl Best Option

April 18, 1995

Nine years ago this month, the worst peacetime nuclear disaster in history occurred at the Chernobyl power station in what used to be the Soviet Union.

Explosions and fires in the plant's main reactor and the resulting release of radioactivity across a wide area of central Europe have caused an estimated 8,000 deaths and countless other lingering diseases and birth defects.

Wide areas of the now independent Ukraine are still uninhabitable and the long-term impact on agriculture and animal life may be incalculable.

Yet two reactors at the crippled power plant have remained in operation and currently provide 5 percent of Ukraine's electricity, despite their questionable condition and susceptibility to another catastrophic breakdown.

Even more ominous, there are scores of similar nuclear plants scattered throughout the newly independent republics of the former Soviet Union, all in various states of disrepair. Each could be a potential Chernobyl.

Ukraine, at least, is finally taking steps to remove the original Chernobyl from the list of disasters-waiting-to-happen. The Kiev government agreed Thursday to close the plant by the year 2000, but said it desperately needs help from the rest of the world to replace its lost power-generating capacity.

Ukraine wants a $4.4 billion gas-fired plant to take Chernobyl's place and it plans to ask the Group of Seven industrial nations and 11 other neighboring countries to share the cost of building it.

Reconditioning and replacing the aging and dangerous Soviet nuclear-power grid will require an enormous long-term commitment by the West, both in terms of financial assistance and technical expertise.

That is not a particularly attractive prospect in an era of scarce resources, but the unthinkable alternative of a second Chernobyl would be infinitely worse.